


Parting, or My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close

by Bow



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-11
Updated: 2003-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:03:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bow/pseuds/Bow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very early fanfic of mine. Implied Remus/Sirius, post-<i>Order of the Phoenix</i>. Plus that Harry Potter kid makes an appearance, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parting, or My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [My life closed twice before its close](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2093) by Emily Dickinson. 



**These that twice befell**

When Remus returned to 12 Grimmauld Place, he forbid himself to wallow. True that he'd lost Sirius again--and this time for good--but there were practical issues to contend with. For one, he'd have to tear the drapes off all the windows. Some of them were black and most were tattered, and when a draft tore through the corridors, their gentle fluttering was no longer benign. But there were 86 windows in Sirius's house, and Remus did not have 86 windows' worth of energy. He left them untouched on their wooden dowels and tried to think of something less morbid.

 

 **All we need of hell**

The trouble was the house itself--living there didn't tend to inspire other kinds of thoughts. Every good part of Sirius was gone, and yet he'd managed to leave behind something besides property. Late some nights, Remus woke from his shallow sleep to feel it: a caged, fretful energy that hovered over the half-empty bed, stuck to the peeling walls, settled uneasily into the gaps between the floorboards. _Oh, Sirius,_ he thought, because really, whom else could it have belonged to?

 

 **Yet remains to see**

Still, no place had ever felt quite so vacant. The Weasleys were back at the Burrow, Shacklebolt was in Hungary, Tonks was who knows where. Even Remus himself felt nearly absent. The Doxies were back, and the dust was so thick over every flat surface that it seemed nothing had ever been clean. One day he dropped a teacup in front of Mrs. Black's portrait and she didn't even stir. But then with Sirius gone, maybe _her_ heart wasn't in it, either.

He owled Harry on impulse. "You could spend a week or two here, if you wanted. I'll fix it with Dumbledore."

And as his owl flew off, a brown blur shrinking into the horizon, Remus was struck by how little Number Twelve resembled home.

 

 **All we know of heaven**

Two summers before, when Sirius had turned up at the back door of Remus's cottage--that had been home. Their sufferings had stripped them--wracked them until one was grey and worn, the other bone-thin and wild. But if the years had twisted them, it had been in such a way that they had only grown into each other.

"Everyone thought-- _I_ thought you were the--you know," Sirius had said, eyes on the unswept kitchen floor. "How can you take me back?"

"You," he said, near enough to smell every foul thing on Sirius's breath. "How could I not?" And then Sirius had looked up at him in a way that made words unnecessary.

 

 **So huge, so hopeless to conceive**

And then Harry showed up, sullen, setting his tatty suitcase on the cracked marble floor of the entryway. Remus worried idly about the flutter of the curtains, but Harry didn't seem to notice. He didn't seem to notice much of anything, just sat still like a dull, angry stone. Remus sat silent and the boy wouldn't talk, Remus spoke and the boy didn't listen. He seemed likely to sulk until he left.

Remus began to regret his invitation, finding that their sort of misery could not brook company. One night when the moon shone bright outside the grimy windows, Remus wanted to damage him, to shake him and hiss words that were untrue: "you _selfish_ little _boy,_ you think you know suffering? How much could _you_ have loved him?" And afterward, there was so much shame.

 

 **If immortality unveil a third event to me**

Remus couldn't think of one decent thing to tell him--something good and true. _It will never go away, you know,_ he could try. _You'll carry your grief with you forever, like a second scar._ There was nothing to say that wasn't sharp and savage, so instead he took the teakettle off the stove. But as he circled behind Harry to fill his cup, something made him speak.

"It will never go away, you know," he said apologetically. Even as it left his lips, he wondered if it wasn't the right thing to say. Holding his breath, he let his hand hover just above Harry's shoulder, then land lightly near the base of his neck. A knot of muscles tensed under Remus's palm, and he drew back as if he'd been burned. But as he turned away, something black and violent caught his eye. Over the sink, the curtain was flapping madly--and he swore Sirius was whispering from the other side, warm and fierce in his ear.

"Hold him," he said, and when Remus bent over Harry, neither one pulled away. "Hold him," he whispered in a voice that belonged to the wind. "Don't you let go."


End file.
